The accession of Queen
Elizabeth II in 1952 occurred in the midst of the gradual transformation of the
old British Empire into the new Commonwealth of Nations.
Constitutionally the adoption of a shared monarchy among autonomous
nations was a relatively simple procedure made possible by such acts as the
Royal Style and Titles Act of 1953. The task of transmitting this new
reality into the consciousness of citizens was a greater challenge. This
article looks at two initiatives intended to extend the notion of shared status
beyond its legal dimension. The first was the
Canadian tour of the Coronation Robes under the administrative responsibility
of the National Gallery of Canada
in 1954-55; the second was the opening of Canada’s Parliament in 1957
by Queen Elizabeth II.

The Coronation of Elizabeth II, held on June 2, 1953,
coincided with the beginning of television broadcasting and became the medium’s
first global production. The impact of television made royal pageants
accessible in an immediate and vivid way. An estimated 27 million people in the
United Kingdom
watched the Coronation live, and hundreds of millions of people around the
world watched filmed coverage of the ceremony within hours of live transmission
in their homes on their newly purchased, rented, or shared black-and-white
television sets. Elizabeth II’s decision to
allow television coverage of her Coronation, the pinnacle in a monarch’s
life, established the importance of the new medium in orchestrating royal
ceremonial events from then on. The Queen has since become the world’s most recognizable and enduring media figure.

The dress she wore for the
Coronation is among the most famous gowns of the twentieth century. Designed by
Norman Hartnell, it was intended to focus on the
wearer’s presence in a glittering masterpiece of state pageantry and had
to hold centre stage, competing against a riot of brilliant ecclesiastical and
ceremonial robes, as well as bright television lighting. The gown was intended
to signify that the one physical person wearing it is the embodiment of eleven
countries. As such, the dress was an atlas of the Queen’s realms.

The Coronation dress was made
of white satin and was lavishly embroidered with gold and silver thread, as
well as precious and semi-precious jewels. The embroidery incorporated the
floral emblems of the United
Kingdom and the Dominions of which Elizabeth
II was Queen. The flowers of the eleven Commonwealth countries were intertwined
in a floral garland, each flower or leaf nestling around the Tudor rose. Canada was
represented by a maple leaf made of green silk and gold bullion thread veined
with crystal. The dress was so heavily laden with jewels that it had to be
lined with taffeta and reinforced with a horsehair crinoline, thereby making it
hang straight without any distortion of the emblems and dispersing its weight
so that it was easier to wear. As the Queen moved, her dress appeared light and
delicate, shifting in gradations of colour from
palest pink, to pale mauve, to soft green - yet the general effect was one of
brilliant whiteness: the Queen glittered from head to toe in gold and a blaze
of diamonds. The dress enhanced the drama. The Queen dazzled everyone as she
glided by in an enchanted aura of majesty and splendour.

Elizabeth II was the first monarch to be styled and crowned Head of the
Commonwealth. This new designation prompted the Commonwealth countries whose
Head of State was Elizabeth II to pass appropriate legislation, before her
Coronation, recognizing the monarch of the United Kingdom as their own within
their respective parliaments. In Canada the legal embodiment for
this change, The Royal Style and Titles Act, was approved by the
Canadian Parliament and was established by Royal Proclamation on May 29, 1953. The
Act conferred legally and publicly, on the eve of the Queen’s Coronation,
the principle of a distinct constitutional monarchy for Canada. Elizabeth
II was equally Queen of Canada and the United Kingdom. The monarch
remained shared, but the institution of monarchy had now evolved into
independent constitutional entities. The Coronation also provided another
opportunity to affirm the concept of the Crown’s multiplicity, despite
there being only one monarch. Although there was no hesitation among the Queen’s
realms in showing allegiance to their sovereign by appearing at her Coronation,
their lack of official participation in the ceremony itself proclaimed to the
world, in a dignified yet visible fashion, their status as equal, independent,
and autonomous constitutional monarchies and their united belief that this was
a religious ceremony of consecration unique to their sovereign’s oldest
realm, the United Kingdom. The British government was hoping that the
Coronation would be an opportunity to use the presence of Commonwealth
representatives to affirm its own position on the world stage. The Dominions,
however, were reaffirming publicly to the international community their
political independence from the British government even though the Statute of Westminster, passed in 1931, had granted the former colonies
full legal independence and had declared that the British and Dominion
parliaments were equal in status. Britain had to reconcile itself to
the fact that it no longer had elevated status within the Commonwealth and that
their queen was now equally, officially, and explicitly queen of separate,
autonomous realms.

A monarch’s supreme
celebration is the Coronation. The significance of the changes resulting from
the concept of a multinational crown and the reluctance of overseas governments
to participate in the Coronation ceremony were not lost on the Queen. Elizabeth
II understood instinctively the political and social values of monarchical
display. She saw the potential of television to unite her realms by
showing her person as the continuing embodiment of the elusive concept of
monarchy. Three hundred years earlier, the first Elizabeth willingly cooperated with her
courtiers to lend her presence to public occasions, thereby enriching the
experience for her subjects. She cannily established and controlled her image
and, not coincidentally, her reign benefited politically by her astute grasp of
the power of costume and pageantry. At the beginning of the twentieth century,
Edward VII eagerly participated in the royal spectacle as a way of
strengthening the link between monarch and people. As Prince of Wales,
George V, Edward VII’s son and heir, believed
that his royal tours in the Empire would further strengthen the sovereign’s
personal bond with the people, a connection that would rise above governments
and politics. If television had the potential to link the Queen’s
overseas realms to their monarch in an imaginative and emotional way, the Queen
in turn wanted to strengthen that multinational bond by opening her overseas
parliaments in her Coronation dress and by exhibiting artifacts from her
Coronation.

Exhibition of Coronation
Robes and Regalia

Under the authorization of the
Queen, the Commonwealth Relations Office proposed an exhibition of the Queen’s
coronation robes to the high commissioners, who in turn presented it to their
governments. Canada
responded informally “that if Her Majesty approves having the robes shown
in Canada,
they will be very welcome indeed.”1 As with the Coronation, a
working committee composed of representatives from both the United Kingdom
and the Commonwealth met on several occasions to discuss a timetable, the
responsibilities of the parties, the costs and financial arrangements, and the
content. An exhibition tour was approved by the cabinets of New Zealand, Australia,
and Canada, starting in New Zealand and Australia, to coincide with the
Queen’s post-Coronation tour of those countries. The Canadian government
assigned the National Gallery of Canada responsibility for all administrative
arrangements while the exhibition was in Canada. From July 2, 1954 to
January 10, 1955, the Coronation Robes and Regalia exhibition toured Canada’s national and provincial capitals
and also went to Montreal, Canada’s largest city at the
time. The length of the show varied from two days to two weeks, depending on
the site; 162,210 people attended. The Commonwealth Relations Office supplied
suggested plans, staging directions, and captions. The exhibition was
self-financed, although the National Gallery absorbed travel expenses for
Gallery staff. A small admission charge (25¢ for adults and 10¢ for
children) was encouraged to help defray costs. As requested, Canada donated the proceeds $2,665
(£969.10) to the Westminster Abbey restoration fund.

The exhibition included
several robes worn during the Coronation ceremony, furnishings used in the
Abbey, and replicas (used in the rehearsals) of the Crown Jewels. The
Coronation dress was not included because the Queen was wearing it to open the
various parliaments during her post-Coronation tour. The Canadian portion of
the tour also did not include the Red Crimson, or Parliamentary, Robe, which was
needed in London
by the Queen for the opening of the British Parliament that autumn. Organizers
at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto
were hoping to add the Coronation dress to the exhibits, but their request was
refused. The Queen would be wearing the dress at the opening of the various
parliaments during her post-Coronation Commonwealth tour. Among the highlights
of the Canadian exhibit were the following:

The Robe of Estate, also known as the Coronation
Robe, was worn by the Queen for her journey back to the Palace following
the ceremony at Westminster Abbey. It is 20 yards long and made of purple
velvet, lined with silk, with a Canadian ermine cape and border.
Embroidered in gold filigree is a design of corn and olive sprays,
denoting peace and prosperity. The robe was installed under a gold canopy,
which was held over the Queen during her anointing in the Coronation
service.

The Supertunica is a long
coat of gold cloth, with wide flowing arms, and is a copy of a Roman
consul’s dress uniform. It was worn by the Queen after the anointing
and for the crowning.

The Duke of Edinburgh’s Robe was woven in
crimson velvet, edged with miniver, and “powdered”
with four bars of ermine, the number of bars designating the rank of duke.
The Coronet consists of silver gilt and a cap of crimson velvet, with
ermine and a gold tassel in the centre. Above the circlet are eight
gold strawberry leaves, again denoting the rank of duke.

The National Gallery clearly
regarded the exhibition as a duty. A perfunctory press release that
emphasized the constitutional and educational aspects of the exhibition signalled the Gallery’s ambivalence towards the show’s
merits as an esthetic event:

For most Canadians, who were
able to follow the Coronation only through the medium of the radio, television
and the film, this will be a unique opportunity of seeing at first hand and
close-up some of the objects associated with that memorable day. In a
way, this exhibition is an informal recognition of the constitutional fact that
Elizabeth II is Queen of Canada, as well as the United Kingdom, and that as
Canadians we have a direct interest in her coronation. For the younger
generation particularly, the objects on view and the explanatory publication
accompanying them will do much towards promoting an understanding of its
historical and religious significance. 2

New
Zealand
and Australia published
catalogues for the exhibition, but Canada did not. Most Excellent
Majesty, an explanatory publication by Dermot Morrah, was selected to accompany the exhibition.3
It was not a catalogue but rather an account of the historical and
constitutional position of the monarchy.

Local newspapers announced the
exhibition when it arrived in their city; some provided a checklist and
photographs. The items displayed included the vestments of the Queen’s
office and recalled a pilgrimage of relics for viewing and veneration. After
all, the vestments were used in a divine rite, a solemn religious ceremony;
they were not simply remnants of pageantry. However, the Coronation had taken
place over a year earlier in a distant country that few Canadians had ever
visited, and although the exhibition may have sparked an interest, it was
unable to sustain the impact of the televised ceremony. The Gallery’s
neutral stance in promoting the event, along with the remoteness of time and
place, compromised the experience. In spite of the large attendance, the
exhibition was an event that passed without much notice.

Royal Visit of 1957

The euphoria did last for the
post-Coronation tour of 1953-1954. Large crowds lined the streets and
filled the squares to see the radiant young Queen. In the capitals of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), New Zealand,
and Australia,
the Queen established a precedent by wearing her Coronation dress and by
opening Parliament, as their Queen, in a Commonwealth that celebrated modernity
and equality over hierarchy and tradition. A few years later, Dermott Morrah offered this commentary on royal visits to the
Commonwealth:

One object of a royal tour is
to give the people visited their fair share of the panoply and pageantry of
state ceremonial, by which monarchical society is so largely nourished.

There are processions in the
streets, reviews of troops, state banquets and speeches. If possible what
has been described above as the most solemn act after a coronation is repeated
in the capitals overseas. That is to say that
the political timetable is so adjusted that the opening of a new session co-incides with the Queen’s visit; and then she opens
Parliament in state, with a very close imitation of the ancient ceremonial at
Westminster.4

Those familiar displays of
monarchy were intended to give an impression of nobility, stability, and
continuity in a period of constitutional change. Despite their respect
for the Royal Family, Commonwealth leaders were not to be dissuaded from
asserting the independence and autonomy of their nations. The Queen’s
strong sense of duty and instinctive understanding of her role led her to
reflect those changes.

In 1953 there was speculation
that the Queen would go to Canada
to open Parliament in formal recognition of her new constitutional position as Canada’s
Queen. The opportunity came when she was invited to visit the United States in October of 1957 to mark the
occasion of the 350th anniversary of Jamestown,
the first permanent English settlement in North America.
Plans were already under way for a royal tour of Canada
to mark the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway
in 1959. However, the Canadian government believed that every official
transatlantic flight should include a visit to Canada,
and as the Queen was to visit the United States that autumn, the government
wanted to invite her to open Parliament as Queen of Canada. Elizabeth II opened
our twenty-third Parliament on Canadian Thanksgiving Monday, October 14, 1957.
She was the first reigning monarch to do so. Dressed in her Coronation
dress, the Queen of Canada read the speech from her Canadian throne written by
her Canadian government.

Local newspapers reported that
people arrived early that morning on Parliament Hill, with their folding chairs
and sandwich lunches, to guarantee a good viewing spot for the ceremony, which
was scheduled to begin at 3:00 p.m. An estimated crowd of 50,000 lined
the streets and Parliament Hill. The daily papers recounted the day in
saccharine and obsequious prose, peppered with nostalgic imperial and colonial
references.

It was a brilliant warm autumn
day, where mother nature “splashed sunshine about in a joyous burst of
royal weather” under a “sky as blue as the ribbon of the Order of
the Garter” and with “the very Red Ensign [then Canada’s
unofficial flag] starched flat against the sky by a sharp wind out of the west.”
The local population watched as guests arrived in evening dress in a “picture
reminiscent of a royal court... . And there she was –
the diamond circlet of tiara flashing, the blue ribbon of the Garter clearly
visible on her shoulder, and the sunshine touching her neck where her
Coronation dress dipped at the back.” As the Queen “swept”
through the main gates of Parliament Hill in an open state carriage, with a
Royal Canadian Mounted Police escort, the guns roared their royal salute and
the bells pealed from the Peace
Tower. The royal couple
reached the steps at the entrance to the Parliament Buildings, where the Prime
Minister stood to welcome them under an archway. They stepped out of
their coach and onto a dais, turning to the crowd who gasped at the sight of
the dress and jewels as the band played God Save
the Queen.5

The Queen’s visit was
the outstanding ceremonial and social event of the year in Ottawa The next evening the Queen wore
another Hartnell creation, “The
Maple-Leaf-of-Canada” dress, to a state dinner at Government House. The
gown was pale green satin, the skirt edged with a broad garland consisting of
deep-green velvet maple leaves appliquéd with crystals and emeralds
representing our national emblem. The state gown embodied the Queen’s
status as the Queen of Canada. Afterwards, the dress was donated to the country
and now forms part of the collection of the Canadian Museum
of Civilization.

The Queen wanted to recall her
Coronation to her overseas realms and dressed for Parliament to show that she
was equally Queen of Canada and Queen of the United Kingdom. She could not say
it but she could dress it. Her Coronation dress underscored the fact that
she was Queen of many realms. Was the gesture too subtle and therefore
not understood? Or did it mark the beginning of grudging indifference and
ambivalence toward the royal presence in Canada?

In carrying out her ceremonial
duties, the Queen chooses clothes that reflect the dignity of the bearer and
the importance of the occasion. Her state gowns project splendour and majesty. They are meant to be clearly
seen and to create a sense of awe. The silhouettes are well defined, and
the sumptuous fabrics and glittering jewellery are
clearly visible from a distance. In Canada, the travelling
exhibition of her Coronation Robes and the Queen’s wearing of her
Coronation Dress to open Parliament were diplomatic gestures intended to
reflect and to reinforce her constitutional right to reign. Although the
crowds in attendance may have delighted in witnessing this display of royal
dress, the performance of monarchy still had to maintain a precarious balance
between a queen who is head of state and a country wary of ostentation and
suspicious of deference. Canadian journalist June Callwood
openly questioned the extent of royal habit and sentiment in Canada in her
coverage of the four-day visit for Maclean’s
Magazine:

The Queen’s role in
Canada, it appeared to some observers, hinged on calculated pageantry, just
enough to warm the pride of Canadians who revere tradition and stateliness
above state but not so much as to antagonize those who consider royalty a
blindingly off-color bauble in an age of lean fear.6

To an increasing number of
Canadians, the Coronation Dress and the exhibition of the Coronation Robes
recalled a British crown rather that a newly independent Canadian one. The
government was well aware of growing ambivalence towards the crown in Canada and
consequently trod carefully in affirming its constitutional relationship with
the monarch. The “maple crown” had yet to emboss its image
upon the collective imagination.